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What now for data-driven marketing?

In a late-2017 Econsultancy survey, one in six brand marketers stated that "data-driven marketing that focuses on the individual" was "the single most exciting opportunity" for their organisation.

Following the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal, though, things have changed. Concerns about public sentiment now override maximizing the use of consumer data, leaving data-driven marketing with an uncertain future.

Brand marketers still have a job to do, though, and many still feel that they are better off using data to help, even though they know that they have to tread carefully.

So how should marketers proceed in the current climate? How can they continue with their data-driven marketing plans?

To find out, I discussed the issue of data-driven marketing in 2018 with Alex Sibois, Managing Director APAC at Lotame and came up with the following suggestions:

1) Brands can use browsing data to improve the digital customer experience

First off, brands can use data gathered while a user is on their site to improve their digital experience.

For example, marketers can collect information such as:

Campaign traffic source

Category page views

Product display pages clicked

Blog pages or other articles viewed

Then, from those events, brands can start building a profile which will attempt to identify the particular visitor's intent. Armed with that information, marketers will be able to provide more personalized content in real-time to improve the digital customer experience.

And while this is possible to achieve without a data management platform (DMP), Alex pointed out that DMPs are purpose-designed to help brands with heavy traffic to achieve personalization using web activity.

Some companies have a lot of first-party customer data which can also be used to improve the customer experience. Frequently, though, this data will be siloed and may not be available across the enterprise.

For example, most banks provide their website customers with relevant financial products and special offers as they use the site. But the same bank may also have usage data from customers who also use a different company site or even an app for day-to-day transactions.

With some sort of data management tool, like a DMP, the bank could combine data from its websites and apps into a single customer view. Marketers would then be able to provide an improved and more coherent customer experience across all of its digital properties.

3) Brands can advertise on publisher consortiums

Finally, another safe way for marketers to use consumer data is to advertise on publisher consortiums.

As we reported recently, major publishers in several markets are aligning with one another to provide a one-stop ad-buying platform for marketers.

As these consortiums are being built with consumer data privacy at their core, brands will be able to safely advertise across all properties based on the consumer's browsing on one of them. That is, if a consumer shows interest in cars on one of the member sites, then an auto manufacturer can bid high for ads across all of the member sites for that user.

The added benefit of using a consortium is that brands will be able to obtain a more accurate and timely profile of consumers than they would from other 3rd-party data providers, making the targeting more effective for brands.

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